The Meaning of Life, My Lad
by missy mee
Summary: James Potter has been left with the baby. Bored, he embarks on a one sided conversation with his son and manages to come to the conclusion that Baby Harry is a great philosopher.


Hi guys, I'm back! This is an itty one shot written in response to a challenge on Wizardtales, nothing major. The good news, however, is that as soon as I've uploaded this I will start to plan and hopefully draft the first chapter pf my next big project. It's going to be HG, Ginny's diary while the Trio are off on a jaunt to search for Horcruxes and she's stuck at Hogwarts. Hope it sounds good, suggestions are appreciated and luv ya'll, mee!

James Potter was not having what you could call a good day. Granted, it had begun surprisingly nicely, which was why it seemed so unfair that it had so rapidly gone down the toilet.

Having risen at what he considered a reasonable hour (an opinion which Lily strongly disputed), he'd been greeted, on entering the flag stoned kitchen of Godric's Hollow, with the first indication that his wife trusted him, not just in their three year old marriage, but in the love-hate relationship that had kick started at the very first 'Alright, Evans?'.

Lily hadn't actually trusted James to turn up to their wedding, not just on time, but at all. Or to feed a six month old Harry a bottle of milk without dropping or otherwise incapitating their very sweet son. So the last thing he would ever expect his wife to do was leave him with a six month old baby, a bowl of fruit puree and a fearsome prospect.

But now he was simply bored.

Babies sleep too much… 

That thought had never occurred to him within the first vocal weeks of his son's life, but now it came in a flash. He wondered vaguely about giving the sleeping bundle of blankets a poke, just to liven things up. But then he decided against it. After all, on the plus side, Harry looked particularly adorable when he was sleeping.

"You are going to have a fabulous life, Harry," he muttered, half to himself. Then he stopped, frowning. James leaned further over the cradle with a soft smile.

"Providing, of course, that your principles are on the right track. Because no one likes a coward, or sneak, or someone with no moral code."

He reached into the cradle and smoothed back a silky down of jet-black baby hair that already covered the little head. Smiling a little, he reached up as if to rumple his own, but then stopped himself. Then he added quietly to the mini lecture.

"No one likes someone who's too big for their boots, either. So make sure that you guard against that one. Not that you'd be vain, it's not your little baby style, is it?"

Harry's little eyes were still shut, but he was beginning to move the chubby limbs that lay about him in the midst of blankets. James's smile became wider as he stared at this tiny person, this tiny person who he somehow knew would rise to greatness.

"You know what makes life worth living, Harry? It's the fact that there is life. Life is a journey - oh don't look at me like that Harry, I'm being serious."

The pair of green eyes had fluttered open, and the baby was staring at his dad with an almost amused expression.

You probably think that daddy needs to admit himself to St Mungo's… 

Leaning down to pick up his son up, James continued speaking to the little face that seemed to understand exactly where he was coming from.

"Life is in the present, it's living, not having lived or anything like that. And when you and I die, the journey will have ended. No, I'm not trying to be morbid...what I mean is...there's no point in worrying about consequences, and about what might happen, because nothing will happen if you don't do it in the first place."

It's not like me to be deep… 

James smirked, then raised his son high in the air and twirled him around as he continued.

"And once it's done, it's done; the journey's ended, and a part of your life is dead. And if you're dead, you can't hurt... If you haven't lived - you know, danced, and wondered, and loved, and maybe lost, then you'll never get another chance once you're at the end."

Little Harry pouted, and James pouted back. It was a rather depressing prospect, being dead. Definitely worthy of a good pout.

"I'm just rambling on and on...I think...I don't know if this makes sense to you or not, but you have to live to fulfill the meaning of life. Do you understand, Harry?"

Harry giggled.

_Of course he understands, _James thought happily. Babies were probably the most intelligent people in the world – that was the fact of the matter. He put Harry down on the sofa, beaming. What a clever son he had, coming up with the meaning of life like that! He must be pretty intelligent to make sense of what daddy was saying, which he clearly did. Anyone could see it in his eyes. His son understood every word he said.

_Maybe he's a genius, _James thought lazily. Any child of his… and Lily's, he supposed, would have to be pretty spectacular in the brains department.

"It's like that poem that some muggle wrote," he continued, "_If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty second's worth of distance run… _then something I can't remember about the earth, not that important anyway, and then something about being a man, my son. Not that you're the son of some poet bloke. I'm really no great shakes at creative writing. But he's like the dad of the world, Mr Whatever His Name Is. So it's not actually biological, but we're not going to get into where babies come from. Please don't ask for at least a few years."

Harry gurgled.

"You know the answer to the meaning of life, don't you, Harry?"

James nodded vigorously, and Harry nodded vigorously to copy him.

'I knew it."

James definitely felt more cheerful after this conversation. Who said that it was one sided, anyway? Just because he couldn't talk yet, it most certainly did not mean that his son couldn't speak. He was actually very eloquent, in his own way.

So, to sum up. He had a wife who apparently trusted him, a nice home, had at least partially fulfilled his life's work, and his son _knew the meaning of life_.

"I've enjoyed our little chat," he remarked to his son. But Harry had already gone back to sleep.

Well, James thought, he may be a philosophical genius, but he's only a baby.


End file.
